Hyæna

by

Siouxsie and The Banshees

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"Hyæna" was the first Siouxsie album I ever bought, after hearing "Dazzle" on the radio. I was soon blown away by the rest of the tracks as well.

The album is an odd array of moods and styles. "Dazzle" - the opening track - is an over-the-top swirl of guitars, rattling percussion and strings. It's followed by "We Hunger", a tormented and frantic bit of misery with wailing, discordant guitars and tribal beats. Then they shift gears on "Take Me Back", a spare, stripped-down song in which the musical accompaniment consists of an organ and brush-style drums. The fourth track - "Belladonna" - prominently features an oboe, and is a rather pretty song. The rest of the album continues shifting around the same way - Spanish-style songs, Dervish-style songs, a Beatles cover - but, somehow, they manage to make it all fit together wonderfully.

"Hyæna" is in the psychedelic, experimental vein of "A Kiss In The Dreamhouse" in its variety of sounds and textures. As others have noted, The Cure's Robert Smith handled the guitar work on "Hyæna", and does an excellent job. "The Top", which The Cure released the same year as "Hyæna", is rather similar in style and worth checking out as well. Strange, atmospheric, moody and often bizarre, "Hyæna" is one of my favorite Siouxsie albums and definitely worth picking up (the generally disliked "Tinderbox" remains my favorite - go figure).

Hyaena has a lazy, almost boring, quality about it that makes it ideal for insomniacs. It's impossible to understand Siouxsie's hatred of guitar players but she seems to fire them after every album, and sacking John McGeogh after their magnificent release, Juju, was a huge mistake. They never again recovered that haunting, scary guitar work on classics like Spellbound,or Monitor. Robert Smith, of The Cure, attempts to take the controls but fails miserably, as each song's riffs sound like an acoustic, unplugged album. His greatest contribution is in the piano-playing on the superb Swimming Horses. Smith looks as though he is about to have a nervous breakdown in the album sleeve, and one can assume this is the fate in store for all guitarists on Banshee albums. The standout track is Dazzle, a great hybrid of classical music and gothic rock.